


It Should Be Happily Ever After

by MsrTenOverSix



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-05
Updated: 2015-05-05
Packaged: 2018-03-29 02:55:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3879502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsrTenOverSix/pseuds/MsrTenOverSix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eren's the only one who doesn't remember. Everyone else tries to be fine with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Should Be Happily Ever After

It starts out soft – weak, a prickling sensation at the back of his neck. A disaffecting sort of feel, one that raises the hairs along his skin, a spur of fear-soaked adrenaline, or something similar. A mild discomfort, but one he can easily ignore.

It starts with her, the small, strange, little girl with the spooky, dark eyes. She’d approached him that day, in the sandbox, and he’d honestly been terrified, worried that she’d only come to knock down his sandcastle. His hands fidgeted, twisted into the fabric of his shirt. Her hands had been still, too still for a kid, not that he’d been particularly aware of it.

_“Eren.” Not a question._

_“U-um, no…my name’s Eric.”_

She’d just stared at him, her eyes blank, and so hopelessly weary. There had been a silence then, and it lasted far longer than any silence between two children should. He was nervous, still unused to anyone that wasn’t his mom or dad, and certainly not used to being stared at so intently.

 He’d barely heard her response, a lonely whisper that’d barely carried, but she said it with just enough conviction, for him to know that he’d heard right,

_“Okay.”_

He remembers that moment with far more clarity than it probably deserves. So he pretends he doesn’t. When asked, he just says,

* * *

 

“Mikasa? Oh, we met back in preschool.”

* * *

He got along easily with Kevin, the new kid at his elementary school. The boy was nervous, but smart, and he liked the ocean too. Even if he couldn’t swim.

_“What?! Everyone can swim!”_

_“Ah-, well, I never lived near water before, and—EH?!”_

He had grabbed Kevin by the shoulders; had promised, on his life, to teach him how to swim. The boy had been frightened, he recalls, probably because Eric was so excitable back then. Still is, if the sighs of his mother and Mikasa are anything to go by.

Kevin said to call him Armin, and Eric doesn’t really care, so long as the boy gets **his** name right.

_“No, it’s Eric. Eh- **rik!”**_

* * *

 

Honestly, it’s not a difficult name.

* * *

 

 First day in High School and he gets in a fight with a fucktard named Jean.

_"Eren?!"_

_"Ah, sorry, no-"_

_"What the fuck, 'no'?! Don't bullshit like that-!"_

_"Jean!"_

_"Ah, Mikasa, you know this douche?!"_

_“Mikasa?!”_

 And it was like some sort of stupid reunion; Eric still doesn’t get it. He can’t **ever** recall Mikasa ever mentioning this dick.

  _Soon enough they’re all friends, though more often than not him and Jean are threatening to break each other’s jaws._

_Once or twice they end up in the E.R., too, and for some reason no one seems surprised._

* * *

He's never been particularly violent before. How could everyone see this coming?

* * *

 

At Sectionals, he readies to enter the water, about to start his leg of the 4x100. He notices a blonde girl from a rival school, watching him from the sidelines. That’s all the time he has for her though, because then it’s his turn. 

Later, he’s waiting for the team bus, sipping from a water bottle, when the girl approaches him.

She doesn’t talk about much, but she compliments him on the success of his team. He thinks she may be flirting, because its high school, and why else would she be talking to him, but honestly…it feels like she really isn’t, and that’s confusing.

The girl’s name is Annie.

She smiles at him. She calls him Eren.

She must be in Basketball, if she knows Mikasa, and she must, because why else would she call him _that._ Buthe doesn’t know why they would have talked about him.

* * *

 

In the end, he mostly forgets about her. But he remembers her smile.

* * *

_“Eric Hunter..."_

_"Here."_

_"...EREN?!?”_

His psychology professor is college is nuts, and that’s putting it nicely. For some reason though, Hanji _loves_ him. He gets roped into becoming a teaching assistant, and he’s not even majoring in psychology.

* * *

 

Maybe he’s the one that’s nuts, but he sort of likes them.

* * *

 

 _“Do you even try, you little shitstain?”_  

Levi was always verbally abusive, but drunk Levi has a particular fixation on berating Eric.

“ _You make everyone feel like shit, you know that, right?”_

Eric would have argued, but…something in him hesitates. Because, sometimes, the way they all look at him, like it physically hurts, being around him…

Well, he doesn’t have any words to explain it. But Levi has plenty, so he’s fine letting the short grump do all the talking.  

" _Shouldn’t we all be fucking ecstatic? You get to live a happy, worry-free life.”_

He wonders at the odds of Hanji having a close friend that also happens to be Mikasa’s previously entirely-unmentioned cousin, but dismisses it eventually. Stranger things have happened.

“ _You’ll never be free though, not when everyone’s afraid to let you go. Sorry for that, I guess.”_

* * *

Honestly, he never understands half of what Levi rambles on about, but whatever; he’s a pretty cool guy. Never calls Eric by the wrong name, or, well, by any name, other than some insulting profanity.               

* * *

Some nights he wakes up to the feel of falling; to finding his teeth snapped tight into the flesh of his hand, filling his mouth with the taste of iron. His entire body quakes with adrenaline, but whatever he dreams about, he never remembers.

* * *

He never remembers a single dream. But sometimes his throat is raw, like he'd been screaming in his sleep. His parents watch him in the morning, eyes slightly bloodshot, and he wonders...but, they'd tell him, right?

* * *

 

Everyone notices the bandages on his hands; he knows this only because no one ever mentions them, never gets caught _looking_. It's weird, how much they  **don't** notice. 

* * *

 

  _“Eren?”_

* * *

 

Sometimes, he feels like he's really missing out on something. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Might expand on this later; make it into a proper story. Until then, I'll leave it at this.
> 
> Comments adored!


End file.
